Blogger betrayal

If you use Blogger via ftp (meaning you host your blog somewhere other than blogspot), do some research before switching to the New Blogger. Try going to the Blogger Help Group and searching on ftp to see the kinds of problems people are having. The new layout tools and the instant publishing feature are not available to ftp users.

Blogger has been pushing it's new version for months, so I made the switch yesterday. Today I happily labeled a bunch of my posts (labels is what the new Blogger uses for categories). That works. In fact, it feels a lot like applying labels to Gmail messages--no surprise since Blogger is now owned by Google.

The next question was "how do I get these labels to appear in my sidebar?" Apparently, it's a piece of cake if your blog is hosted at blogspot. But if you host your own? Impossible. So, let me get this straight. I go to all the trouble to make the switch that I've been requested to make and I don't get the feature that I most wanted? And, you didn't bother to tell me?

To find out that information in advance I would have had to either read the help group or read, and interpreted correctly, two different issues on Blogger's known issues blog. The first one says that I can add labels to my posts but I only get a list of labels in my sidebar if I switch to the Layout templates. The second one tells me that if I use ftp, that I can't use the Layout template and, furthermore, I will probably never have access to that feature.

Blogger is frustrating its most sophisticated users by blowing this. It looks like I won't be the only one looking into making a switch. I've been holding off for months because I thought the new Blogger was going to meet my needs and, instead, it led me down a primrose path to nothing but wasted time. My host, lunarpages, offers Wordpress. Anyone have advice on switching from Blogger to Wordpress?

Labels: reviews

June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007